FICTION
The great achievement of the eighteenth century was in the development
of fiction. The famous names here are, of course, Richardson,
Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. After them, and also to a less degree
contemporary with them, are many writers of fiction the quality of
whose work has consigned them to the list of “The Neglected, the
Disdained, the Forgotten,” and in most cases it would be a literary
misfortune if by any chance they should fall into the fourth class,
“The Resuscitated.” As literature they are almost unreadable. It
is only from the historical point of view that they can arouse any
real interest. For the present purpose I do not pretend to have read
all the works of fiction written in the eighteenth century. The
forty-three mentioned here were selected because by their dates they
represent the century as a whole, and because they represent also the
various kinds of fiction. I shall first speak of these briefly in
chronological order, and then indicate such general statements as may
seem the legitimate outcome of the facts presented. The one point to be
considered is the use made of external Nature in the novel or romance.
The “Sir Roger de Coverley” papers (Addison and Steele, 1712) are
continuous narratives marked by some at least of the characteristics of
the coming English novel. Many of these papers purport to be written
from the country and Will Wimble complains that they “begin to smell
confoundedly of woods and meadows.” After a time the author finds
himself growing short of subjects in the country, and returns to
town as the true “field of game for sportsmen of his species.” Though
written from the country the papers have nothing about country scenes
except frequent phrases such as, “We then took a walk in the fields,”
and one brief description of “a solemn walk of elms,” unless, indeed,
we might add the pleasure the author took in his friend’s poultry yard.
The stress is all on country people.
“Robinson Crusoe” (Defoe, 1719), the first great example of the
_voyage imaginaire_, necessarily regards Nature from the point
of view of immediate utility. The whole interest of the book rests on
the mechanical ingenuity whereby man subdues Nature. There are few if
any passages where Robinson Crusoe is represented as being in any way
sensitive to the beauty or charm of Nature.
In “Pamela” (Richardson, 1740) there is much talk about the value of
travel in Great Britain and on the continent, but there is not a word
about the scenery of the places visited. Pamela sums up her impressions
of travel in England in one sentence. “These excursions have given me
infinite delight and pleasure, and enlarged my notions of the wealth
and power of the kingdom” (Vol. III, p. 304). When Lord B. and Pamela
are spending their honeymoon in their Kentish house they plan certain
improvements such as cutting a vista through the coppice; they train
the vines around the windows because they love the mingled odors of
woodbines and jessamines; and they listen for two hours at a stretch
to the “responsive songs of two warbling nightingales” (Vol. II,
p. 163). Earlier in their career, during a walk in the garden, the
fragrance from a bank of flowers inspires Lord B. to sing a typical
eighteenth-century song of which this is one stanza:
The purple violet, damask rose,
Each, to delight your senses, blows.
The lilies ope as you appear;
And all the beauties of the year
Diffuse their odours at your feet,
Who give to ev’ry flower its sweet.
There is not a hint in the book of any feeling toward Nature except
such as is characteristic of the pseudo-classical poetry.
In “Joseph Andrews” (Fielding, 1742) there are four brief passages
in which Nature is touched upon. Two of these are evidently meant as
satires on the ordinary descriptions of sunrise. The first one is as
follows:
“Aurora now began to show her blooming cheeks over the hills, whilst
ten millions of feathered songsters, in jocund chorus, repeated odes
a thousand times sweeter than those of our laureate” (p. 43; cf. p.
219). The longest description is of a vale with a winding rivulet, many
trees, and soil “spread with a verdure which no paint could imitate,”
the whole place being such as “might have raised romantic ideas in
older minds than those of Joseph and Fanny” (p. 226).
In “Jonathan Wild” (Fielding, 1743) there are no references to the
world of Nature.
In “David Simple” (Sarah Fielding, 1744) the search of the hero for a
true friend is so complicated and absorbing an occupation that there is
no room for observation of the external world.
In “Clarissa Harlowe” (Richardson, 1748) there is one simile drawn from
Nature (Vol. II, p. 478), one mention of the “variegated prospects”
from Hampstead Heath (Vol. III, p. 198), and one reference to an
overgrown ivy so thick as to be a shelter from the rain (Vol. I, p.
394).
In “Roderick Random” (Smollett, 1748) there are no references to Nature.
Of the eight passages referring to Nature in “Tom Jones” (Fielding,
1749) two are satirical of the conventional descriptions and
similitudes of the day.
Aurora now first opened her casement, _Anglicé_, the day
began to break (Vol. II, p. 9).
As in the month of June, the damask rose, which chance hath
planted among the lilies, with their candid hues mixes his
vermilion; or, as some playful heifer in the pleasant month of
May diffuses her odoriferous breath over the flowery meadows; or
as, in the blooming month of April, the gentle, constant dove,
perched on some fair bough, sits meditating on her mate, so sits
Sophia, looking a hundred charms, and breathing as many sweets,
her thoughts being fixed on her Tommy (Vol. II, p. 61).
A third passage, also satirical, is, “And now the moon began to put
forth her silver light, as the poets call it (though she looked at
that time more like a piece of copper)” (Vol. II, p. 172). There is
one appreciative reference to the attractive scenery of Devon and
Dorset. The description of Mr. Allworthy’s estate which owed “less to
art than to nature,” is modern in tone and marks the break already
made with the formal garden (Vol. I, p. 12). In another passage there
is an expression of pleasure in a wide prospect, seen by moonlight,
for “the solemn light which the moon casts on all objects is beyond
expression beautiful, especially to an imagination which is desirous of
cultivating melancholy ideas” (Vol. I, p. 422). The other passages are
of no significance.
“Peter Wilkins” (Robert Paltock, 1751) is the first and most famous of
the successors of “Robinson Crusoe.” The scene of Peter’s trials and
successes is laid in Africa and the southern islands. There is but one
brief passage in which there is even the slightest indication that the
author thought of Nature from any but the utilitarian point of view.
“Pompey the Little” (Coventry, 1751) is a romance ostensibly relating
with serio-comic minuteness the life and adventures of a lapdog much
in the manner of the _novele picaresco_ of Mendozo and Aleman, but
really dealing in thinly disguised social satire. It makes no use of
Nature, unless we may count poor Mr. Rhymer who looks at the moon and
quotes Milton to the extravagant amusement of a group of dandies who
observe him.
In “Peregrine Pickle” (Smollett, 1751) Peregrine sings one of the
conventional songs to Emilia, beginning,
Thy charms divinely bright appear
And add new splendor to the year.
This is the only use of Nature in the book. The eighteen months of
travel in France and Holland do not suggest a single phrase about the
scenery of those countries.
Mrs. Lennox’s “The Female Quixote” (1752) is a record of the absurd and
futile attempts of a beautiful maiden unfortunately brought up on “the
languishing love romances of the Calprenedos and the Scuderis” to make
over the practical world about her according to the laws of love and
chivalry. Almost all her adventures occur in the country, but there are
only two references to the out-door world. Of the estate of the marquis
it is said: “The most laborious endeavours of art had been expended to
make it appear like the beautiful product of wild uncultivated nature.”
In another passage the heroine is said to lead her unhappy friend into
the garden, “supposing a person whose uneasiness proceeded from love
would be pleased with the sight of groves and streams.”
In “Ferdinand Count Fathom” (Smollett, 1753) there is merely a
conventional description of a furious storm.
In “Sir Charles Grandison” (Richardson, 1753) there are two interesting
passages concerning the estate of Sir Charles. It was his aim not
“to force and distort nature, but to help it as he finds it, without
letting art be seen in his works, where he can possibly avoid it”
(Vol. II, p. 276). A part of the estate was evidently laid out
according to the ideas of Kent and Brown, but the orchard “with its
regular semicircle rows of pears, apples, cherries, plums and apricots,
arranged according to the season of flowering,” belonged to the days of
Sir Thomas, when symmetry and regularity ruled (Vol. IV, p. 238). In
this novel also is Richardson’s frequently quoted description of Savoy,
“equally noted for its poverty and rocky mountains ... one of the worst
countries under heaven” (Vol. III, pp. 138–42).
We have now passed the middle of the century and there has not been
in the works of fiction mentioned a single passage indicating any
close observation or love of Nature, and hardly a passage showing
any knowledge of Nature except as found in parks and gardens. But
in 1756–66 there appeared a fantastic novel by Thomas Amory called
“The Life of John Buncle,” which is notable in the present study
because nearly all the adventures whereby the hero gains and loses
his seven Socinian wives occur among the mountains of Westmoreland
and Cumberland. We have but to compare the book with Mrs. Ward’s
“Robert Elsmere” to see how extravagantly unreal are most of Amory’s
descriptions. They often contain marvels equal to those of “Vathek.”
The mountains are made as lofty and dangerous as the most inaccessible
Alps, and they are so heaped in together that progress from one
valley to another would be out of the question were it not for
convenient caves and natural tunnels by which the venturesome hero
makes his way from vale to vale. But in the midst of these absurdities
and impossibilities, there are occasional passages of effective
description, and of real appreciation of wild mountain scenery. It is
an entirely new note in fiction and it followed close upon the poem
by Dr. Dalton, which was probably the first poetical tribute to the
scenery of the Lakes. Mr. Amory aptly describes mountain tarns as
pools of “black, standing, unfathomable water” (Vol. I, p. 290). He
frequently gives enthusiastic descriptions of the views from mountain
tops. In one passage he says: “I climbed up to the top by a steep,
craggy way. This was very difficult and dangerous, but I had an
enchanting prospect when I gained the summit of the hill.... The vast
hills had a fine effect in the view” (Vol. II, p. 122; cf. Vol. I, p.
167).
Of Westmoreland he says:
The Vale of Keswick and Lake of Derwentwater, in Cumberland,
are thought by those who have been there to be the finest point
of view in England, and extremely beautiful they are, far more
so than Dr. Dalton has been able to make them appear in his
descriptive poem; or than the Doctor’s brother, Mr. Dalton, has
painted them in his fine drawings; and yet they are inferior
in charms to the vale, the lake, the brooks, the shaded sides
of the surrounding mountains, and the tuneful falls of water
to which we came in Westmoreland. In all the world, I believe,
there is not a more glorious scene to be seen in the fine time
of the year (Vol. III, p. 93).
And, again, “Westmoreland is the most beautiful and romantic solitude
in the world” (Vol. III, p. 151). The first volume of Amory’s book
appeared in 1756. The other volumes, written at intervals thereafter,
were published in 1766. The best passages are in the third volume, but
at the latest they must have been written three years before Gray made
his tour to the lakes. It would be interesting to know whether Gray had
read “John Buncle,” as Amory had Dalton’s poem. At any rate Amory’s
novel shows how early the Lake District was visited by lovers of the
beautiful, for he not only describes it himself, but he speaks as if
there were already a good deal of discussion as to the rival charms of
Keswick and Westmoreland.
In “Rasselas” (Dr. Johnson, 1759) the scenery of the Happy Valley is
briefly described. Since it was a spot where “all the diversities
of the world were brought together, the blessings of nature were
collected, and its evils were extracted and excluded,” it would be in
vain to look for first-hand description. We have merely an impossible
combination of millennial details. After leaving the Happy Valley Imlac
wanders through the world, but his only impression from Nature is a
feeling of repulsion at the “barren uniformity” of the ocean. When
he tried to be a poet he did, to be sure, turn to Nature. He “ranged
mountains and deserts for images and similitudes” in true classical
style. He studied trees and flowers, he wandered along rivulets,
and sometimes he watched the clouds, for “to a poet nothing can be
useless.” Dr. Johnson’s use of Nature in “Rasselas” is tasteless and
insipid.
Sterne’s one allusion to Nature in “Tristram Shandy” (1759–67) is too
characteristic to be omitted. It occurs in the description of a journey.
There is nothing more terrible to travel-writers than a large
rich plain, especially if it is without great rivers or bridges;
and presents nothing to the eye but one unvaried picture of
plenty; for after they have once told you that it is delicious
or delightful (as the case may happen); that the soil was
grateful and that nature pours out all her abundance, etc., they
have then a large plain upon their hands which they know not
what to do with and which is of little or no use to them but to
carry them to the next town.
In “Almoran and Hamet” (Hawkesworth, 1761), an oriental tale, there is
no use of Nature except in a few far-fetched similes, and one or two
phrases about the lengthening evening shadows.
In “Sir Launcelot Greaves” (Smollett, 1762) there is no reference to
Nature except in a sarcastic allusion to poets who cannot talk of a
beautiful girl without “blending the lily and the rose and bringing in
a parcel of similes of cowslips, carnations, pinks, and daisies.”
Mrs. Brooke’s “The History of Lady Julia Mandeville” (1763) has a hero
and a heroine who rejoice in “a genuine taste for elegant nature,” and
their letters contain some descriptive passages evidently intended to
combine vividness and elegance. The gardens and parks behind the house
are “romantic beyond the wantonness of imagination,” and the whole
adjoining country has “every charm of lovely unadorned nature.” Beyond
the house there is “an avenue of the tallest trees which lets in the
prospect of a fruitful valley, bounded at a distance by a mountain,
down the sides of which rushes a foaming cascade, which spreads into
a thousand meandering streams in the vale below.” In the woods are
rustic temples “in the most elegant style of simplicity.” At the close
of a walk they come to a grotto “wildly lovely, its entrance almost
hidden by the vines that flaunt over its top,” and there they find
an opportune repast with servants in attendance. The motherly care
with which Mrs. Brooke preserves her delicately bred characters from
roughness or fatigue or hunger interferes somewhat with her attempts
to represent “simple, unadorned nature,” and in spite of her protests
against “the gloomy haunts of London” she never quite gets out into the
free country. Her raptures have a forced, made-up air. The exclamatory
ecstacy of such passages as the following is certainly open to
suspicion:
“What a divine morning! how lovely is the face of nature! The
blue serene of Italy with the lovely verdure of England! But
behold a more charming object than nature herself! The sweet,
the young, the blooming Lady Julia!”
There is a more genuine ring to Lady Wilmot’s protest, “The finest
landscape is a dreary wild without people.”
Most of the action in Mrs. Brooke’s second novel, “Emily Montague,”
is laid in Canada, which country Mrs. Brooke had visited. The book
represents her enjoyment of the strange scenes about her. The beauty
of the river Montmorenci more than repays Miss Arabella Fermor for
the fatigues of a voyage across the Atlantic. The hero finds that the
streams and mountains of England seem petty when he is in the presence
of the majesty and sublimity of the western world. The descriptions are
perhaps over-elaborate, but they are not ineffective, and they show
much closer knowledge of natural phenomena and more real interest in
them, than do the tamer passages in the preceding novel.
In the famous “Castle of Otranto” (Walpole, 1764) there is no use
whatever of Nature.
In Brooke’s “Fool of Quality” (1766) the sky is fitly spoken of as “a
stupendous expanse sumptuously furnished with a profusion of planets.”
Certainly no other sort of sky would have presumed to bend down over
Mr. Brooke’s stupendous little prig of a hero. The chief use of Nature,
however, is in similes for Harry’s countenance which is “like sunshine
on a dark day,” or a “lake on a summer’s evening showing heaven in its
bosom,” or, if bathed in tears as it frequently was, “like the sun in a
shower.”
The charm of “The Vicar of Wakefield” (Goldsmith, 1766) rests upon
its sweetness and purity, its quaint humor, and its quality of fresh,
open-air wholesomeness. Its use of Nature is of the most casual,
unemphasized sort. There are not in the whole work twenty-five lines
concerning the country scenes in which all the action takes place. And
yet these simple, direct phrases have a magical power of suggestion.
The seat under the hawthorn where the family drank their tea and
watched the sunset, the dinner in the hayfield, the brief description
of the little farm, have in them the power of reality and do more
to give a free, out-of-doors atmosphere to the story than all Mrs.
Brooke’s panegyrics. But here, as in Goldsmith’s other works, the
stress is on the characters, and the little, truthful pictures of
Nature seem almost accidental.
In Sterne’s “Sentimental Journey” (1768) there is no use of external
Nature.
Of Mackenzie’s “Man of Feeling” (1771) the same may be said unless,
indeed, we except one reference to a scene “not unlike Salvator’s
backgrounds.”
Smollett’s “Humphrey Clinker” (1771) is the last of his novels and the
only one in which there is effective use of Nature. Smollett was born
and brought up in the valley of the Leven; and he spent some months
there before the final trip to Italy for his health. He was in Leghorn
about a year before he died, and during this year he wrote “Humphrey
Clinker.” It recounts the travels of Matthew Bramble in search of
health. The love of Nature comes out chiefly in the letters supposed to
be written from Scotland. He speaks with pleasure of the “huge dusky
mountains of the West Highlands, piled one over another,” and of Loch
Lomond, that “surprising body of pure, transparent water, unfathomably
deep in many places,” with its green, wooded islands. His delight in
the wild scenery of Scotland is thus expressed:
I have seen the Lago di Gardi, Albano, De Vico, Bolsena, and
Geneva, and upon my honor, I prefer Loch Lomond to them all; a
preference which is certainly owing to the verdant islands that
seem to float upon its surface, affording the most enchanting
objects of repose to the excursive view. Nor are the banks
destitute of beauties, which even partake of the sublime. On
this side they display a sweet variety of woodland, cornfield,
and pasture, with several agreeable villas emerging as it were
out of the lake, till at some distance the prospect terminates
in huge mountains, covered with heath, which being in the bloom,
affords a very rich covering of purple. Everything here is
romantic beyond imagination.... Above the house is a romantic
glen or cleft of a mountain covered with hanging woods, having
at bottom a stream of fine water that forms a number of cascades
in its descent to form the Leven; so that the scene is quite
enchanting.... This country is amazingly wild, especially
towards the mountains, which are heaped upon the backs of one
another, making a most stupendous appearance of savage nature,
with hardly any signs of cultivation, or even of population. All
is sublimity, silence, and solitude (pp. 261–65).
On the country of Ossian he says:
These are the lonely hills of Morven, where Fingal and his
heroes enjoyed the same pastime. I feel an enthusiastic pleasure
when I survey the brown heath that Ossian was wont to tread; and
hear the wind whistle through the bending grass.... The poems of
Ossian are in every mouth.
Smollett’s love for the Leven, that “charming stream ... transparent,
pastoral, delightful,” is further evidenced by this “Ode to the Leven,”
a single stanza of which may be quoted here:
Pure stream in whose transparent wave
My youthful limbs I wont to lave;
No torrents stain thy limpid source,
No rocks impede thy dimpling course,
That sweetly warbles o’er its bed,
With white round polished pebbles spread (p. 262).
Smollett has one character who labored under ἀγροφοβια, or _horror
of green fields_, but that was manifestly not his own case. Though
he completely ignored Nature in his other books, “Humphrey Clinker” is
ample proof of his sensitiveness to Nature and his descriptive power.
It needed a touch of homesickness and the vivifying force of early
associations to bring the feeling to the surface, but as soon as it
found expression there was revealed a closeness of observation and a
genuineness of affection for Nature in her milder forms not found in
any novel before “Humphrey Clinker.” The nearest approach to it is in
the fantastic work of Amory.
In Clara Reeve’s “Old English Baron” (1777) there is one brief
conventional passage about the morning serenade of the birds and the
fragrance of the woodbine (p. 27).
In “Julia de Roubigné” (1777) Mackenzie makes more use of Nature than
he had in “The Man of Feeling.” Julia and Savillon are both represented
as finding pleasure in the beautiful country around them. In one letter
Julia says: “Methinks I should hate to have been born in a town;
when I say my native brook, or my native hill, I talk of friends of
whom the remembrance warms my heart.” In the serenity of Nature she
finds calmness after spiritual tumult. Belville, the home of Julia,
is described as “a venerable pile, the remains of ancient Gothic
magnificence.” The most attractive part of the estate was “a wild and
rocky dell, where tasteless wealth had never warred on nature, nor even
elegance refined or embellished her beauties. The walks are only worn
by the tread of shepherds and the banks only smoothed by the feeding
of their flocks.” There is great regret expressed when the new owner
of Belville cuts down the trees, and puts in modern adornments “which
they call Chinese.” In this novel Mackenzie shows a real though narrow
appreciation of free, unsubdued Nature.
In Fanny Burney’s “Evelina” (1778) the only touch of Nature is a
criticism of Vauxhall Gardens as being too formal and regular. In
“Cecilia” (1782) there is no use of Nature.
William Beckford’s “Vathek” (1784) is an extravaganza where there is no
pretense of representing Nature as it is. A single quotation will give
the general tone. It is a description of a high mountain:
Upon it grew a hundred thickets of eglantine and other fragrant
shrubs, a hundred arbours of roses, jessamines and honeysuckle,
as many clumps of orange trees, cedar, and citron whose branches
interwoven with the palm, the pomegranate, and the vine,
presented every luxury that could regale the eye or the taste.
The ground was strewed with violets, harebells, and pansies, in
the midst of which sprang forth tufts of jonquils, hyacinths,
and carnations, with every other perfume that impregnates the
air.
In Dr. Moore’s “Zeluco” (1786) neither the hero himself, that “finished
model of depravity,” nor any of the characters associated with him,
show any knowledge of the existence of any world outside their own
intrigues and counter-intrigues.
Mrs. Inchbald’s “A Simple Story” (1791) is a study of true and false
education. There is in it no word concerning Nature. The same may be
said of her “Nature and Art,” published in 1796.
Godwin’s story, “Caleb Williams” (1794), has one brief, conventional
description of a sunrise. This ignoring of Nature seems the more
surprising in Godwin since his next novel, published ten years later,
“Fleetwood, or the New Man of Feeling,” is full of the wild scenery of
Wales and is really the study of a character made sensitive by early
and constant communion with Nature. But this novel would carry us into
the next century.
Another novel of some repute toward the close of the century is Robert
Bage’s “Hermsprong, or Man as He Is Not” (1796). It was read chiefly
for its political bias toward the popular democratical doctrines. The
scene is laid chiefly in the country and there are occasional pleasant
bits of description. They are unimportant, but the book cannot be
dismissed without a reference to the hero who was compelled, by lack
of funds, to seek a country retreat, and who fortified his failing
resolution to leave the beloved city by quoting Thomson’s “Seasons.”
The two authors who first made extensive use of Nature in fiction are
Mrs. Charlotte Smith and Mrs. Ann Radcliffe.
Mrs. Smith shows in her novels and poems a really ardent enjoyment,
though seldom a close knowledge, of Nature. She indulges in long and
animated descriptions of places of which she has only vaguely heard and
the result is sometimes as amazing as the scenes in “Vathek.” In “The
Old Manor House” (1793), her best work, a part of the scene is laid in
the northern United States and Canada. Here is her idea of spring in
that region:
The forest in only a few days after the severest weather, which
had buried the whole country in snow, burst into bloom, and
presented, beneath the tulip tree and the magnolia, a more
brilliant variety of flowers than art can collect in the most
cultivated European garden.
The following is a description of Canada on the banks of the St.
Lawrence, “a very few days” after the severest winter weather:
On the opposite side of the river lay an extensive savannah,
alive with cattle and coloured with such a variety of swamp
plants that their colour, even at that distance, detracted
something from the vivid green of the new-sprung grass.... The
acclivity on which the tents stood sinking very suddenly on the
left, there gave place to a cypress swamp ... while the rocks
rising suddenly and sharply were clothed with wood of various
species; the evergreen oak, the scarlet oak, the tulip tree
and magnolia, seemed bound together by festoons of flowers,
some resembling the convolvuluses of our garden, and others the
various sorts of clematis with vegenias and the Virginia creeper
... beneath these fragrant wreaths that wound about the trees,
tufts of rhododendrons, and azalia, of andromedas and calmias,
grew in the luxuriant beauty; and strawberries already ripening,
or even ripe, peeped forth among the rich vegetation of grass
and flowers.
Mrs. Smith’s imagination certainly had other laws than the dull ones
imposed by the facts of the case. She could hardly have mixed up zones
and seasons and flowers and fruits more successfully if she had tried.
But the notable point here is that there was in her mind an instinctive
and inevitable dwelling upon the scenery of the country through which
she led her hero. The English scenes are much better. The following
passage shows well her emotional openness to the influence of Nature.
Just as he arrived at the water, from the deep gloom of the
tall firs through which he passed, the moon appeared behind the
opposite coppices, and threw her long line of trembling radiance
on the water. It was a cold but clear evening, and, though early
in November, the trees were not yet entirely stripped of their
discoloured leaves; a low wind sounded hollow through the firs
and stone pines over his head, and then faintly sighed among
the reeds that crowded into the water; no other sound was heard
but, at distant intervals, the cry of the wild fowl concealed
among them, or the dull murmur of the current, which was now
low. Orlando had hardly ever felt himself so impressed with
those feelings which inspire poetic effusions: Nature appeared
to pause and to ask the turbulent and troubled heart of man,
whether his silly pursuits were worth the toil he undertook for
them. Peace and tranquillity seemed here to have retired to a
transient abode; and Orlando, as slowly he traversed the narrow
path over ground made hollow by the roots of these old trees,
stepped as lightly as if he feared to disturb them. Insensibly
he began to compare this scene, the scene he every day saw of
rural beauty and rural content with those into which his destiny
was about to lead him.
Mrs. Barbauld says that Mrs. Smith was one of the first to introduce
description of scenery into fiction. That she had predecessors we have
already seen, but it is true that she laid much more stress on Nature
than had any other novelist except Mrs. Radcliffe. Mrs. Smith has
frequent descriptions that are not needed for the progress of the plot
or the development of the characters, but are written purely for their
own sake. She also often uses Nature as dramatic background and she
represents her hero as deeply influenced by Nature. Mrs. Smith’s poems
further attest her love of Nature. In one poem she says,
Farewell, Aruna! on whose varied shore
My early vows were paid to Nature’s shrine.
In another she addresses the South Downs,
Ah, hills beloved, where once a happy child,
Your beechen shades, your turfs, your flowers among,
I wove your bluebells into garlands wild.
Mrs. Smith’s life was a most unhappy one, and she found her real
comfort in Nature.
Mrs. Radcliffe’s “Romance of a Forest” (1791) appeared two years before
“The Old Manor House,” and “The Mysteries of Udolpho” (1794) one
year after. In these novels by Mrs. Radcliffe the romantic landscape
was presented in its complete form. Except in the most rapid parts
of the story there is greater stress on the scenery than on the
characters. Emily, Adeline, and Clara seldom indulge in an emotion
without first describing the dell or glen or forest glade, to which
they have wandered. They are never too deeply agitated to observe the
glories of sunrise and sunset. A wide view can soothe any grief. This
susceptibility of the heroines to Nature is represented as one of their
greatest charms. Mrs. Radcliffe had never seen most of the scenes she
described. She had never been in France, Italy, or Switzerland. The
landscapes she gives us do not bear the stamp of reality. They are
ideal compositions but they are never merely an inventory nor are they
impossible combinations. Though not exactly true, they can be read
with pleasure because the details are blended into harmonious and
lovely pictures which seem to have caught the actual spirit of the
places described. She delighted in all kinds of Nature, peaceful or
wild, but her especial pleasure was in those phases of Nature ignored
by the classicists. Mountains, the ocean, the phenomena of the sky,
and deep forests, are chiefly dwelt upon in her descriptions. Her love
of the ocean is really a new element in the general attitude toward
Nature. Painting, poetry, and fiction had up to this time put little
stress on the ocean, but Mrs. Radcliffe in frequent passages shows
that her own feeling was that of Adeline, of whom she says, “Of all
the grand objects which nature had exhibited the ocean supplied her
with the most sublime admiration. She loved to wander alone by its
shore.” It is, however, in the representation of forest scenes that
Mrs. Radcliffe’s most effective work is done. The wild and terrifying
influence of the dark woods that cover the Apennines, all the dim
and shadowy loveliness, all the mystery and suggestiveness of the
romantic forest about the ruined abbey, reappear in her descriptions.
Her feeling toward mountains is one of almost extravagant delight in
their vastness, their wildness, their remoteness, and inaccessibility.
She is deeply sensitive to all the “goings on” in the sky. She catches
with accuracy the most ethereal, delicate, evanescent effects. It
is especially mystery and remoteness that she loves, hence night,
moonlight, and stars attract her. Closely connected with her pleasure
in the sky is her artistic openness to all aërial transformations.
In her wide views over land and sea, in vistas caught through forest
glades, in pictures of twilight or dawn, of sunrise or sunset, she
seldom fails to note the quick shiftings of color and form, the
interplay of light and shade, the dimness, the transparency, the
luminosity, resulting from atmospheric changes.
She looked upon Nature not only, as she said of one of her own
characters, “with the eye of an artist, but with the raptures of a
poet.” The effect of Nature on man in soothing his grief, modifying
his passions, and elevating his character is everywhere insisted upon.
As Adeline’s eyes “wandered through the romantic glades that opened
into the forest her heart was gladdened.” Through the melancholy
boughs the evening twilight, which still colored the air, “diffused a
solemnity that vibrated in thrilling sensations upon the hearts of
the travellers.... The tranquillity of the scene, which autumn had
touched with her sweetest tints, softened her mind to a tender kind of
melancholy.”
The Alps “filled her mind with sublime emotions.” The solitary grandeur
of these scenes both “assisted and soothed the melancholy of her
heart.” The stillness and total seclusion of the scene, the stupendous
mountains, the gloomy grandeur of the woods, “diffuse a sacred
enthusiasm over the mind and awaken sensations truly sublime.” Such a
scene “fills the soul with emotions of indescribable awe, and seems to
lift it to a nobler nature.” “It was in the tranquil observation of
beautiful nature” that Clara’s mind recovered its tone. The moonlight
on the sea seemed to “diffuse peace.” Twilight sometimes “inspires
the mind with pensive tenderness,” sometimes “exalts it to sublime
meditations.” The Alps inspire reflections that “soften and elevate
the heart and fill it with the certainty of a present God.” Such
expressions were repeated with an insistence that becomes monotonous.
There is, indeed, an element of sameness in all the descriptions, an
effect the more tiresome because they are so numerous. So large a
descriptive element would hardly be admitted in a novel today unless
justified by some remarkable power of word-painting. Mrs. Radcliffe’s
descriptions would doubtless invite the modern reader, at least after
a steady progress through four or five volumes, to do some judicious
skipping. But thought of as in her own day, Mrs. Radcliffe must always
rank as a discoverer, so new and fresh was this element she brought
into fiction. As is usual with discoverers she overworked her idea. She
was not a great genius. She was often weakly sentimental. But she had
a genuine and most ardent love of Nature, and, when at her best, had
exceptional descriptive power. Her fame and her influence on succeeding
literature rest on these characteristics.
In “Fiction,” as in “Travels” and “Poetry,” there is the transfer of
interest from what man does or is, to the powers of untrammeled Nature.
The new spirit here, as in “Travels,” is late in finding adequate
expression. We can hardly put any real beginnings of it earlier than
“John Buncle” (1756–66). Even after that, development is spasmodic and
slow. In most of the novels and romances we find the romantic impulse
to see strange lands, but men and manners absorb the attention of the
travelers. Mrs. Radcliffe’s fugitives in “The Romance of the Forest,”
the travelers in “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” and Mrs. Brooke’s soldier
in “Emily Montague” are the first to make much of the scenery through
which they pass.
In general we may say that novels had little to do with Nature,
and romances much. This may account for the lack of reality in
the descriptions. There is nothing in any work of fiction at all
correspondent to the temperate, truthful, clear-cut work of Cowper and
Burns. There is practically nothing of the bald realism of John Scott,
whose poetry was written rather in the scientific temper with which
most travels were undertaken. Nor, on the other hand, is there anything
of the visionary, mystical power of Blake. The best use of Nature in
fiction is more akin to the emotionalism of Beattie. Except for Mrs.
Radcliffe, and she came late in the century, fiction contributed less
to bring about the new attitude toward Nature than did any other form
of art expression.